the wail of archy
by archy
(Don Marquis)damned be this transmigration
double damned be the boob pythagoras
the gink who went and invented it
i hope that his soul for a thousand
turns of the wheel of existence
hides in the shell of a louse
dodging a fine toothed combi once was a vers libre poet
i died and my spirit migrated
into the flesh of a cockroach
gods how i yearn to be human
neither a verse libre poet
nor yet the inmate of a cockroach
a six-footed scurrying cockroach
given to bastard hexameters
longfellowish sprawling hexameters
rather had i been a starfish
to shoot a heroic pentametergods i am pent up in a cockroach
i with the soul of a dante
am mate and companion of fleas
i with the gift of homer
must smile when a mouse calls me pal
tumble bugs are my familiars
this is the punishment meted
because i have written vers librehere i abide in the twilight
neither a man nor an insect
and ghosts of the damned who await
a word from the core of the cosmos
to pop into bodies grotesque
are all the companions i have
with intellect more than a bug sghosts of the damned under sentence
to crawl into maggots and live there
or work out a stretch as a rat
cheerful companions to pal withi with the brain of a milton
fell into the mincemeat at christmas
and was damned-near baked in a pie
i with the touch of chaucer
to be chivvied out of a sink
float through a greasy drain pipe
into the hell of a seweri with the tastes of a byron
expected to live upon garbage
gods what a charnel existence
curses upon that pythagoras
i hope that he dwells for a million
turns of the wheel of life
deep in an oyster crab’s belly
stewed in the soup of gehennai with the soul of hamlet
doomed always to wallow in farceyesterday maddened with sorrow
i leapt from the Woolworth tower
in an effort to dash out my brains
gods what a wretched pathetic
and anti-climactic attempt
i fluttered i floated i drifted
i landed as light as a feather
on the top of a bald man’s head
whose hat had blown off at the corner
and all of the hooting hundreds
laughed at the comic cockroachnot mine was the suicide s solace
of a dull thud ending it all
gods what a terrible tragedy
not to make good with the tragicgods what a heart-breaking pathos
to be always doomed to the comic
o make me a cockroach entirely
or make me a human once more
give me the mind of a cockroach
or give me the shape of a humanif i were to plan out a drama
great as great shakespeare s othello
it would be touched with the cockroach
and people would say it was comiceven the demons i talk with
ghosts of the damned that await
vile incarnation as spiders
affect to consider me comicwait til their loathsome embodiment
wears into the stuff of the spirit
and then let them laugh if they candamned be the soul of pythagoras
who first filled the fates with this notion
of transmigration of spirits
i hope he turns into a flea
on the back of a hound of hell
and is chased for a million years
with a set of red hot teeth
exclamation point
Return to Poems
Return to Wind Off the Hilltop